by
Steven Sherrill
(bio and other
books)
From the top of a watertower,
Benny Poteat sees something he isn’t suppose to
see—a beautiful young woman, setting up a video
camera, taking off her clothes, and then calmly
walking into the water to drown. Benny nervously
climbs down the tower
making his way to the riverbank where it happened,
knowing full well that it is too late to save her.
He gathers her clothes, her video camera, and the
video tapes left in her bag, tosses them into his
pickup truck and rushes home dazed and frightened as
though he had somehow caused her death. He turns
one question over and over in his mind, “What do you
do after watching someone die?”
He
doesn’t go to the police, instead he keeps what he
saw to himself. Paralyzed by a need to be close to
the drowned girl he watches the video tapes she
purposely left behind. Then he searches and finds
the drowned girl’s sister, Becky Hinkey. Yet, rather
than telling Becky what he saw, he starts dating
her. He holds her while she cries over her missing
sister. He considers telling her what he saw. But
then he wonders--has too much time past? Would it
seem suspicious? Would it look as though he had
something to do with it? His frustration builds,
he wishes he had gone to the police, but he didn’t
and now he doesn’t know what to do. He considers
telling Jeeter, his best friend, “One time, when
they were both drunk, Benny asked Jeeter if he
believed in angels. ‘Shut-up, Benny.’ That was the
closest Benny ever came to talking about it.”
Sherrill’s humor is steeped in southern literary
tradition with its dark, grotesque quality. He
carefully weaves the lives of his oddball characters
to create a most believable and compelling story.
Becky Hinkey, while the most normal of all
the characters, is a midget. Jeeter is most at home
on a motorcycle and in a flea market. He prefers
spending his energies on rigging up a vibrating
passenger seat on his motorcycle to arouse his
female passengers. And then there’s Doodle and
Dink. Doodle, Benny's neighbor and a waitress
at the Nub & Honey where he sometimes works. Dink,
a friend with serious issues of his own. We
laugh and sympathize with the midget stuffed in the
giant pumpkin; we laugh and feel ill from the dog
“sicking up” a pair of panties; we laugh and
sympathize for Jeeter’s date, who is deeply bruised
by his vibrating seat device.
Like the
mischievous boy in second grade who always got away
with shooting spitballs because he could charm the
socks off the teacher, Sherrill’s poetic style and
ear for rhythm lets him get away with telling us
anything he wants.
Quote
from Visits From a Drowned Girl:
Benny
Poteat has seen a lot of THINGS.
Benny
PO-teat has seen a lot of things.
Benny
Poteat has seen a LOT of things.
Almost
NOTHING would surprise him.
Almost
nothing would SURPRISE him.
ALMOST.
Emphasis
is negotiable, and emphasis is everything."
Buy
Visits from a Drowned Girl
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buy the audio book version
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